


Freeze, Thaw

by dotzipped



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Fluff, Gender-neutral Reader, Mild Language, No Video Game Logic, Other, Reader-Insert, Sickfic, Takes Place During Techno's Retirement, reader gets hypothermia & frostbite lol, they/them pronouns for reader, will this remain a oneshot? shrug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28734234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotzipped/pseuds/dotzipped
Summary: In lonely times, a frostbitten stranger stumbles into Technoblade's life. He takes care of them as best he can.
Relationships: Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF)/Original Character(s), Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF)/Reader
Comments: 12
Kudos: 186





	Freeze, Thaw

**Author's Note:**

> hiii if you have a problem with me writing this then either send me something from the cc that proves your point, or leave me alone <3 i know i'm cringe you don't have to tell me. this is about the personas not the people, but i feel like that's obvious lmao  
> i'm pretty sure this is mostly canon-compliant, but everything is taking place over longer periods of time (months, rather than days). also no video game logic bc i don't like it hjfgdghd

It probably shouldn’t have, but the turnaround in the weather as the sun set had surprised you a little. There was, of course, no such thing as a warm day out here, but the longer days meant more sun meant a more tolerable climate, which meant that the beginnings of a snowstorm pelting at your windows had taken you somewhat off-guard. Not that it mattered to you; you had no plans to leave the house that night anyway. The muffled sounds of heavier-yet-heavier snow are a nice addition to your reading.

A less amenable surprise is the sharp, frenzied knocking at your front door. Your mind races: you hadn’t been expecting anybody, Phil surely would have forewarned, and at this hour of the night someone knocking is either an emergency or an ambush. As you rise, your hand passes through air at your hip, where a sword should be. Not anymore, you remind yourself.  
The knocking has slowed, tired, and you decide to take your chances.

As you swing the door open, whatever stern question you were about to bark out leaves you, with the heavy weight that falls into your torso. It’s a person - a cold, damp, possibly-unconscious person, and you bring them in without thinking. You do your best to bring the stranger inside, closing the door with your foot, and after briefly fretting about what to do, you decide on half-carrying-half-dragging them to your fireplace and depositing them before it in a position that might be comfortable.

The stranger looks rough. They’re shivering violently, snow-encrusted, sickly even in the warm light of the fire. They do, however, seem to be conscious, so you pose a stilted question:

“Are you, uh, alright?”

You get an inarticulate noise in response, something nasal and pained. It answers your question well enough.

You curse under your breath. “I’ll get you some dry clothes,” you offer, faintly, and retreat up a ladder to do just that.

As you rifle through your possessions for the smallest clothes you own, you rack your brain for everything you know about frostbite and hypothermia. No healing potions for frostbite, you recall; it makes the tissue knit back together all wrong. If the stranger does have frostbite, it’ll be a long recovery. In any case, they’ll need bedrest. Probably for several days, you think, as you glance at your own bed - the only bed in your house. You groan, and climb back downstairs with old clothes in hand.

You toss the bundle of fabric to the stranger’s side, and gesture to a door on the back wall.

“You can change in there,” you say, “There’s towels if you need ‘em.”

The stranger stirs, as though they were half-asleep, then nods feebly. They mumble something that sounds like “Thank you,” and attempt at once to rise to their feet and pick up the clothing.

Neither effort works. With a shout, they shudder and fall, limbs weak and fingers unbending, and you instinctively go to catch them so that they don’t collapse onto the floor.

“Shit, sorry, are-- are you okay?”

They just look at you for a few moments, head tilted back, glassy eyes meeting yours, breathing.

“M’fine,” they manage, voice weak.

You glance at their shirt. At the buttons. If they can’t bend their fingers, there’s no way they could undo those on their own, which means…

They finish your thought for you. “Y’wanna help?”

* * *

All things considered, undressing and redressing the stranger wasn’t as uncomfortable as it could have been. They helped you out as best they could, you averted your eyes as necessary, and you even asked a few questions about them, which got slurred, half-coherent responses. You’re still not sure about their name, but you’ll press them on the details later. For now, you’re draping your big winter cloak over their shoulders, to keep them warm. They’re seated in your armchair, which you’ve shuffled closer to the fire, so that you can keep an eye on them while you brew some potions.

The book you have open, illuminated by candlelight, gives the recipe for what amounts to a modified potion of regeneration, heavily diluted and administered twice a day for about two weeks. There’s a salve, too, that needs to be applied to the blistering skin - that you will have to apply to the blistering skin. That’s fine.

By the time you’re grinding up the ingredients, you hear gentle snoring from across the room. The stranger has drifted off to sleep, and despite the condition that they’re in, they seem… serene. Their head lolls to one side, nestled in the fur of your cloak. Their eyelids flutter and their lips are gently parted. They’ll be okay, you think, and the thought puts something in your chest that you don’t quite understand. They stir slightly, and only then do you register that you’ve drawn closer to them to get a better look at their face.

Feeling embarrassed - for some reason - you move back again, to resume your potion-making. Powdering, mixing, filtering - it’s busywork, and it keeps your mind occupied. Keeps you from thinking too hard. It doesn’t take too long to get the ingredients prepared and bottles brewing, but your evening has been taxing, and by the time you’re done you’re feeling more tired than you have in months. You stand, extinguishing the candles around you so that the only remaining light comes from the brewing stands, which also produce a low bubbling sound. You’ll let them go overnight. With the extinguishing of the fireplace, and the snow on the windows, the room becomes almost completely dark.

The stranger, predictably, is still sound asleep. They look comfortable enough in that armchair, but the idea of just leaving them there doesn’t sit right with you. Waking them up on purpose would be pointless, seeing as they definitely won’t be able to climb the ladder, so the solution seems obvious: you scoop the stranger up in your arms. Well, arm; you’ll need at least one to actually climb the ladder, but picking people up is rarely a challenge for you anyway, so you manage. You drape them over your shoulder as gently as you can, as securely as you can, and the trip upstairs is barely a hassle. At the top, you unwrap them from their cloak - your cloak - and cast it aside to be dealt with later.

When the stranger is deposited into your bed, though - when they’ve been tucked into your fur sheets, looking more comfortable than you’ve ever felt in them - that’s when things get difficult. You can’t just get into bed with them, right? They never told you you could, and there’s no good reason to. It feels wrong to even consider it. You spend a while going over the options in your mind: you could sleep in your armchair, but it’ll get cold downstairs and you want to be with the stranger if something happens. You could sleep in a chair up here, but you don’t want to be all stiff while you’re taking care of someone, and anyways it’d feel creepy, like you’re watching them sleep.

It takes entirely too long for you to realise that you could sleep in your bed, on top of the sheets, but eventually it pops into your head and that’s what you decide on. You pick your cloak up off of the floor and use it as a blanket, as you lie what you hope is a comfortable amount of distance away from the stranger.

The wind whistles outside, muffled by the thick blanket of snow over your home. Something tells you won’t be able to leave the house for a while. The stranger’s snoring next to you is soft and contented. Being snowed in doesn’t sound so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> i may or may not continue this, depending on reader interest and if i'm feeling up to it. anyways technoblade just lets people live in his house huh


End file.
